A Picture Paints a Thousand Words
by Fantasy Boudicca
Summary: Christina Seah, along with all the women in her family, are magic artists - everything they draw becomes real. Complete.


**Disclaimer: Really? You think I own the characters other than Christina Seah and Co.? **

Chapter 1

"Hello?" A woman's voice echoed in the flat. I put down my pencil.

"Hello?" a man called. I padded out of my room, pushing my spectacles further up my nose. Like most Singaporean children, I was short-sighted.

In the living room was a woman with long, brown hair that reached to her waist, green eyes, wearing a purple silk dress and a dark-haired man wearing a black cuirass. "Who are you?" I asked.

They seemed just as confused as I was that they were in a four-room HDB flat. "Rapunzel and Eugene Fitzherbert. Who are you? Where are we?" the man asked.

"My name is Christina Seah. This is my home," A few billion questions were buzzing around in my brain like flies, but I swatted them away. Wait; did the man just say Rapunzel and Eugene Fitzherbert? Holy Minerva. This has to be a coincidence, I thought.

"Could you send us back?" Rapunzel asked.

"What?" I was completely confused. Did she think I was some sort of magician?

"Could you send us back?" she repeated.

"How exactly do I do that?" I asked.

She looked confused. "I don't know. You brought us here; shouldn't you be able to send us back?" she asked.

"Rapunzel, I don't think this was done on purpose," Eugene said.

Thank you, I thought.

Turning to me Eugene asked, "How old are you?"

"I am nine years old," I said.

"Was this done on purpose?" he asked.

"No. I don't think so. I was just doing a drawing just now," I said.

"This wasn't done on purpose?" Rapunzel asked.

"No. I'm sorry, but I have no idea how to send you back," I replied.

That left us standing there in silence. I had two people who seemed to have walked straight out of a Disney movie on my hands and no idea what to do, they had an nine year old girl who brought them here and claims to have no idea how to send them back.

"We're stuck here, aren't we?" Rapunzel asked. "I think so," I said.

"We may as well make the best of it. I'll ask Mum for help." a voice that didn't seem to come from me said. I picked up the house phone and dialed my mother's hand phone number. "Hi Mum. Uh, I have a bit of a situation on my hands," I said.

"What is it?" Mum asked.

"Don't freak out when you hear this. Remember 'Tangled'? The Rapunzel movie?"

"Yes."

"I think Rapunzel and Eugene are in our flat."

In hindsight I probably should have taken notice when she believed me.

"Christina, I'm coming home now. We need to talk. In the meantime, they are to be guests. Goodbye," Mum said.

I hung up the phone. This is going to be insane, I thought.

I followed Mum's instructions to the letter. I offered drinks and showed them around the house. Ten minutes after Mum hung up; she was at the front door. "Hi Mum. You wanted to talk to me about something?" I asked.

"Later. First we have to sort this out," Mum said.

"Good morning, Rapunzel and Eugene Fitzherbert. I'm sorry about how my daughter reacted. This sort of thing does not happen every day," Mum said to Rapunzel and Eugene.

"Good morning, Mrs. Seah," Rapunzel said. Eugene seemed to be a little on edge.

"Christina, bring me your sketches," Mum said. I obediently brought my sketchbook to Mum. "Women in my family have had this -ability- for centuries. This would be Christina's first experience with it." Mum said, finishing one of my drawings. It was of a wine glass. No sooner had she finished the drawing than a wine glass appeared on the paper.

"Mum . . ." I asked. Saying 'I was disconcerted' would be the understatement of the century, possibly the millennium. "Christina, did you do any drawings recently?" Mum asked. I thought for a moment.

"Yes." I said. It was a portrait of . . . Rapunzel and Eugene.

"Show me the drawings," Mum said.

I trotted over to the living room, where I had left my drawings earlier that day. Wait a minute, I thought. I picked up the piece of paper I had done the portraits on. It was blank.

Mum nodded when she saw the blank piece of paper. "Did you finish that drawing?" Mum asked.

"Yes. Please tell me I didn't inherit that," I said.

"It appears you have."

I sat down on the dining chair. All of a sudden I had a massive headache. Mum was talking to Rapunzel and Eugene. "My mother knew how to send people back into their portraits, but unfortunately, she left instructions on how to in Latin. No-one I know speaks Latin," Mum said.

I rested my head in my hands. This day keeps getting better and better, I thought.

"So, we are stuck here," Eugene said glumly.

"I am able to speak a little Latin. Perhaps I could help translate?" Rapunzel suggested.

Mum nodded and went to her room. She brought out a yellowed piece of paper with some swirling writing on it and placed it on the table. I could not understand a single word on that sheet of paper. "Would you please bring me a piece of paper, some ink and a quill?" Rapunzel said.

Mum brought out her old calligraphy set. It was comprised of an extremely old-fashioned pen and a bottle of ink. Rapunzel looked a bit surprised, but quickly set to work translating it to English.

"Should I do it now?" Mum asked. Eugene nodded. Mum looked at the piece of paper and carefully began reading the words of the spell. There was a gold haze around us. The instructions said that once the gold haze dissipated, whoever it was who was brought there would be sent back.

The gold haze dissipated.

Rapunzel and Eugene were still there.

Mum frowned. "Maybe I should try," I suggested. I took the piece of paper and read out the spell. A thicker gold haze surrounded us. When I looked up from my paper, we were in a palace. It took precisely a second for the headache to set in. I held my head and tried to tamp down the urge to moan. "We're back!" Rapunzel whispered excitedly.

Eugene, noticing me, asked, "Are you alright?"

I willed myself to look okay. "I'm fine," I lied. In reality, my head felt like it had just been whacked by a sledgehammer.

Holy Minerva, I thought as tunnel vision crept in. I blinked, trying to clear my vision and rested my hands on my knees. This is going to be a long day.

Once Rapunzel and Eugene cleared up the whole hullaballoo of a nine year old girl wearing a pair of Capri shorts and a shirt standing in the middle of a hall, rumors started going around that I was an enchantress, sent as a human peace treaty by my family. If you, dear reader, are wondering why I did not just send myself back immediately, it was because I no longer had the spell. It had disappeared the moment I looked from it for some strange reason. I was stuck there until someone brought me back.

Getting used to living in the year 1603 with Disney characters was weird. Very weird. For example, Rapunzel's pet chameleon, Pascal, thought it was funny to hide on shelves then scare the living daylights out of me when I looked for something.

Then there was explaining my ability without scaring people.

And also explaining my need to draw and swearing that I would not use my ability on purpose.

And getting used to the customs and clothes and castles.

And bodyguards that would point a sword at me if I came anywhere close to Rapunzel or Eugene. The first time that happened, I automatically threw up my hands in surrender, as if to show I was unarmed. This inspired some laughs and I beat a hasty retreat without even fulfilling my purpose in approaching Rapunzel: to ask for some scrap paper. I had brought my mechanical pencil and eraser with me, why they stayed with me and not the paper I will never know, but I did know that if I could draw, maybe I could draw a time machine to take me back to the 21st century.

Not one week after blundering into the seventeenth century, I was kidnapped. The kidnappers, Julius and Belinda, were servants at the palace that had heard of my ability. They had kidnapped me to make their fortune.

Their plan was simple, and it worked spectacularly well. First, they put drugs into my food that would knock me out for about twelve hours. Then, under the cover of nightfall, they gagged and bound me, stuffed me into a sack, and rode off with the unconscious me tied like luggage across a horse.

Within the day, search parties were out looking for me, under Eugene's command. I was imprisoned in a decrepit cottage in the middle of nowhere.

About fourteen hours after Julius and Belinda had drugged me, I woke up to find myself in a rickety old cottage. No, not even a cottage. A shed. I could see through the holes between the planks that formed the walls of the cottage some bushes and ivy growing outside the cottage. I was tied head to toe, literally. I had a gag around my mouth, my wrists were tied together, my arms were tied to my chest, my legs were tied to each other at the knees and ankles, and though this would be overkill, my fingers were tied to each other, so if by some miracle I got my arms free, I could not draw. On top of that, they used my own waist-length hair to tie my head to a pole, so I was practically paralyzed. Fantastic.

Julius and Belinda, though kidnappers, were not completely evil. I had enough water, and my legs (and head) were untied every few hours so I could use the toilet. But I had only a few slices of bread a day, and I was constantly bound from the waist up. If I wanted to eat or drink, Julius and Belinda would untie only my gag, so I had to eat like an animal. The rope was tied so tightly that it cut into my flesh. If I tried to escape, which I tried once, I was belted.

It was three days after I was kidnapped that one of the search parties found me. I was slamming my body - they had decided to untie my head after I stopped trying to escape - against one of the walls in an attempt to weaken it. It was pointless, as it was nailed in securely, and the wood was not rotten, but I still tried. Julius was too drunk on wine to bother with me. Belinda was out.

But the sound did alert one of the members of the search parties. They broke down the door. I must have looked horrible by then. I had given up breaking the wall down and had sat down to lean on it, thoroughly exhausted. Julius, hearing the sound of the soldiers outside, pulled out a long, evil-looking dagger from under his coat.

"Give us the girl!" the Captain shouted. I squirmed, trying to free myself from the rope. Not very easy to do when your arms are tied across your chest.

Julius could not decide whether to hold the knife at my throat or at the guards. He decided on at my throat. I was snapped out of any notions of freeing myself by the cool, sharp metal of a knife blade pressing against my throat. I would have kicked him away, if my legs were untied.

I rubbed my gag against my fingers, attempting to loosen it. It worked. It fell to my chin. Drunken Julius cut it away carelessly, giving me a few rope burns.

The guards were in a dilemma. If they attacked Julius, I was killed. If they tried to rescue me, I was killed. Either way, they had a dead so-called magician, and who knew what form of vengeance I would take on them.

I was trying to think straight. If I threw my weight back, I might be able to knock Julius over, but then I would be on my back and almost completely defenseless. If I kicked with both my legs, I might lose my balance and end up on my back. I settled on throwing my weight at Julius. Did I have anything to lose?

I knocked Julius over, and I kicked him with both my feet. The guards attacked. Julius got in a frighteningly deep cut on my neck that had to be stitched up later, though. I screamed and one of the guards lunged forward to tackle Julius. The struggle was brief and fatal. The guards' daggers found its mark, and my captor was dead.

The guards bound the wound on my neck loosely, to allow me to breathe, and untied me. The ropes had done so much damage to my arms, legs and fingers that I could barely walk and I could not even ride or anything. My arms were damaged so badly, that to this day you can still see the scars the ropes left. My fingers couldn't draw for days. In the end, I walked, bit by bit, to the castle. It felt good and bad at the same time to be walking. I could exercise again, I was free, but where the ropes had been tied hurt every second of the way.

We slowly made our way to the castle. My arms were soon recovered, and I could draw, but not for very long. Rapunzel and Eugene were politely concerned, nothing more. I soon regained full use of my arms and legs, and the cut on my neck healed, leaving a pale scar.

According to law, kidnappers were put in jail. Julia was put in jail, but Eugene suggested that I go over and scare her a little. He gave me a few sheets of paper and off I went. I knew exactly what I wanted to draw. It would be the single most terrifying, but harmless, thing I could think of: a huge tarantula. I looked at a few biology books from the library to get an idea of what I could draw, and settled on the biggest, scariest tarantula I could find.

Outside their jail cell, I sketched six tarantulas, taking up a whole sheet of paper, put in a cage. Julia's eyes nearly popped out of her skull when she saw the cage of tarantulas appear on the paper. Payback time, I thought as I released the tarantulas into her cell. Eugene and Rapunzel watched from a safe distance. "Don't worry, they're harmless!" I wrote on a piece of paper, and then flashed it to Eugene and Rapunzel so that Julia could not see. Eugene laughed and went closer. Rapunzel came closer as well.

Inside, Julia was climbing all over the place in an attempt to escape the tarantulas. Eventually, I took pity on her and sketched a bird to eat the tarantulas. You would not believe how relieved she was when the bird ate the tarantulas. I sketched a handful of seed to tempt the bird back, and held it in my hand. The bird flew over immediately, landing on my wrist. I stroked it, and it moved into my fingers.

Suddenly I was back in my HDB flat. Mum had brought me back by drawing a portrait of me the moment I disappeared, but it was a week and a half where I was. As I suspected, the time in our two worlds were separate. Mum asked what happened to my arms and legs. I explained everything to Mum. I still had the bird on my wrist, so of course we had a discussion about whether to keep it or not. We eventually settled on giving it to my cousin, Beatrice. She too had inherited the ability, and would not question us on how we found the bird.

I never completed a drawing again.

Chapter 2

Five years later

"Auntie Christina?" Lucy, my three-year old niece, called from her room. I was babysitting her while my cousin Beatrice, the same cousin who took in the bird I brought from 1603, was shopping in Malaysia.

I walked to her room, an impending sense of doom hovering over me, like a storm cloud. Lucy had inherited the ability, but was too young and inexperienced to know what to do when her drawings became real. The previous week a satin cushion had appeared in her room, and the week before a talking mouse. It had been nearly five years since I had first discovered my ability, and I had never completed a drawing since then. I was not prepared to risk it.

Who else but Disney's Fa Mulan and General Shang stood in my little niece`s room. Not again, I thought. "Good morning, Fa Mulan and General Shang." I said, bowing to them. Inside, I was going over every possible outcome to this situation.

General Shang and Mulan reached for their swords. Lucy squealed in terror and ran to me the moment she saw the swords. "Lucy, go to the living room and stay there," I said to my niece, keeping a wary eye on the swords.

Lucy hesitated, before I herded her out of the room. "Please, no need for that. My niece is just three years old. I am sure she did not mean to bring you here," I said.

Mulan put away her sword, but General Shang kept his sword drawn. Could I blame him?

"Good morning. Who are you? Where are we?" Mulan said. I eyed the General's sword as I replied, "My name is Seah Jing Yi. This is my cousin's house in the twenty-first century. I am sorry about this. My niece still has not learned. I will send you back to your own time immediately."

"Shang, put away the sword," Mulan said to the General. He slowly sheathed the sword, but kept his distance. "Sit down. I will find the spell to send you back to your own time," I said, walking out the door to find my bag. Since my first brush with my abilities, I had made sure that I kept a copy of the translated spell to send people and objects back with me at all times in my wallet. It had proved infinitely useful multiple times, not to me though. After nearly getting my neck sliced open at the age of nine, the general consensus in my Mum's family was that it was a bad idea to have me send back anything.

I rummaged around in my bag for my wallet. My fingers closed around the familiar circular shape of my wallet and I pulled it out of my bag. "EZ-Link card, money, bookstore card . . ." I mumbled as I looked through its cluttered interior for the slip of paper I had written the spell on.

"Bingo!" I said out loud when I found it. I headed back into Lucy's room. On second thought, I called for Lucy to come with me. If I got sent there as well, and my spell went missing, I would need someone else with the ability to bring me back.

I knelt down so that Lucy and I would be on the same level. "Lulu, I need you to listen very carefully. If Auntie goes missing, draw a picture of me. You must draw a picture and finish it," I said to Lucy.

Lucy nodded; her brown eyes were as wide as saucers. "That's my favorite niece," I said, hugging her.

Turning to Mulan and the General, I explained, "The last time I sent someone back, five years ago, I got sent back as well. I could not come back until my mother drew a picture of me."

I got back to my feet. "Get up. You'll likely as not bring anything you're in direct contact with back with you," I said.

Mulan and the General got to their feet. Taking a deep breath, I read the spell, the gold haze surrounding us.

Suddenly I stood in an Ancient Chinese house. The all-too-familiar headache set in. I dug my fingers into my scalp.

"Are you alright?" Mulan asked. "I'm fine. It'll pass in a second," I said, massaging my scalp.

"Shang! Mulan!" a small red and gold dragon called. Mushu.

He bounded up to us, a blue and purple cricket resting on his head. "Mushu!" the General called.

"Who's she?" Mushu asked.

"Her name is Jing Yi. She will be staying with us for a while," Mulan said. I straightened up. What the holy Minerva do I do now? I thought.

"Jing Yi, this is Mushu. He's my guardian," Mulan said.

"Nice to meet you, Mushu," I said. Mushu eyed me. Only then I realized I was wearing a black lace-up dress, like a Gothic ballerina, black wristbands, a lace choker necklace, and I wore my hair in a pixie cut. In Ancient China.

General Shang seemed to realize this. "Clothes have changed in China in the past few hundred years," he noted.

"That wasn't China. That was Singapore, a different country." I said. "But yes, in China, some people do dress like this."

"Let's get you into something from this era," Mulan said. "Follow me. I think I have a few dresses that might fit."

With that she headed to one of the rooms. I followed her.

Inside the room were a large chest, and two wardrobes. Mulan opened the chest and rummaged about inside for a dress. "What happened to that yellow one with a green belt?" General Shang asked from behind us, startling the life out of me.

"Too big," Mulan said. "Here."

She brought out a dress with a sky blue skirt and a top in darker blue. The belt was a long piece of cloth in jade green. She passed it to me, and said, "Guest room is right across the courtyard."

I thanked her and scurried across to the guest room. It was relatively simple, with a queen-sized bed, a wardrobe and a desk and chair. I stripped off my dress, leaving my underwear on. I slipped on the skirt, feeling infinitely thankful that I had paid attention in my history classes. I was soon dressed in the top and belt, though I left my wristbands and necklace on. I felt in my black skirt's pockets for a mechanical pencil, eraser (the moldable type that leaves no dust) and notepad, which I always carried with me. I put them on the desk, clipping the pencil to the notepad.

Someone knocked on my door just as I clipped the pencil to the notepad. The General and Mulan walked in, Mushu close on their heels. They wanted to see me draw, if it was not too much trouble. I said that it was no problem, and sat down at the desk to do a sketch.

"What do you want me to draw?" I asked.

"Something small. Maybe a fan?" General Shang suggested.

I flipped through my notebook. I knew I had an uncompleted drawing of a fan in it. I had left out the hinge of the fan. I drew in the hinge, and no sooner than I finished the sketch than a fan appeared.

Mushu, who by now had climbed onto table, asked me, "Why don't all your drawings become real?"

"It has to be completed by someone with the ability before it can become real. Like for example, if my mother, who has this ability, were to do a drawing, if I were to finish it, it would still become real," I explained.

"How long have you had this ability?" General Shang asked.

"I don't know. I was trained from young never to complete any of my drawings. It was not until I was nine years old that I discovered it, when I did a pair of portraits, and in the resulting mess I was sent to the year sixteen oh three. Since then I haven't completed any drawings of people or animals."

"What about objects and plants?" Mulan asked.

"I've done those, but I generally avoid completing any drawings."

"Who else in your family has this ability, besides you, your mother, and your niece?" Mulan asked.

"Every female from my mother's side of the family has the ability. It is passed from mother to daughter."

"Why did you cut your hair so short? Aren't you a bit young to go to war?" Mushu asked.

I laughed. "You're right, I am a bit young. Actually, I cut my hair like this because it was more practical and so it doesn't get in my eyes," I said.

"And no-one objects to that?" Mulan asked.

"No-one. Five years ago a kidnapper used my hair to tie my head to a pole, so they don't dare!"

"What is that you are wearing?" General Shang asked, indicating my spectacles.

"I cannot see things that are far away. These help to compensate for that," I said.

The rest of the first day in the Lee's house was interesting to say the least. Mulan was curious about modern day society, while the General was interested in modern day warfare. I knew absolutely nothing about modern warfare except for what I learned from documentaries and my textbooks, mostly because I was not particularly interested in weapons, except as things to draw. Even then I did not sketch them very often, out of fear that I would inadvertently find a nuclear bomb in my HDB flat (And yes, that had happened before, to a distant relative a few decades back. It's now known as the Nuclear Bomb Incident.).

I was, I admit, a bit of a bore. Most of my personality centered around art and my nieces and nephews, Lucy in particular. She was the only one of my nieces that had not at least learned not to finish any drawings, and the women in my mother's side of the family have all had to clean up her 'messes' at one point or another.

Once, Lucy had finished a drawing of a pony, in the middle of the annual reunion dinner. One of my other nieces, Valerie, had to send the pony back to its own time, the year 1119. In the middle of the Battle of Ager Sanguinis. In Syria. She had come back with a large scar on her arm and a disturbing knowledge of swordsmanship and brutality, for an eleven year old girl. It was a nightmare hiding the scars we got from anyone outside the family, but we had no choice.

Another time, apparently Anthony, Lucy's primary-school age brother, looked up from a sketch he was working on to find Winnie the Pooh standing in Lucy's room. As a result he soon found myself in the Thousand Acre Woods trying to remember the spell to send himself back. Unfortunately, any memory of the spell or any trace of it vanishes every time, without fail.

These shenanigans did make for good stories, though. It was interesting to see the General and Mulan's reactions when I told them of the various places we were sent to as a result of our drawings. When I showed them the scars on my wrists from the ropes I was bound with four years ago, and was always careful to hide with wristbands and bracelets, and the scar on my neck I was careful to hide with chokers and collars, even in school, they looked at me like I was a fellow veteran soldier, instead of just a fourteen year old girl with strange powers. General Shang told me to call him plain Shang instead.

The next day, Shang and Mulan decided to give me lessons in swordsmanship and use of daggers. I was slightly nervous around blades by default, after what had happened four years earlier. Eventually, after the tenth lesson, I could perform most of the movements in my sleep. Then we moved on to duels. To put it simply, for the first fifteen-odd duels, I got 'killed' three times over every time I dueled. Eventually, after the twentieth duel, Mulan declared that I could theoretically hold off an idiot with a sword. I took that as a victory.

Soon I became famous for being the artist that could paint things so realistically, that if completed would come to life. The Emperor himself sent for me. At the time, he was at his autumn palace, a solid five days away. He told Mulan to choose a small escort. Unsurprisingly, Yao, Ling and Chien Po were chosen. Yao, I give you my word, is the last person you would ever want to go up against in a fight. That man is tough!

We set off the day after we received the notice. My hair still had not outgrown the pixie cut, making it way too easy to spot me.

On the third night into the journey, I was woken by a rough hand clamping over my mouth. I screamed and Mulan ran in with her sword drawn. Her sword was covered in blood. In a blind panic, I punched and kicked the man. Mulan attacked the man with her sword. The man fell almost instantly, his head nearly cut off.

I heard shouts outside. Suddenly, Shang ran into the wagon. "Are you alright?" Mulan asked. I was too stunned to speak. "Yes." Shang said, "What about the two of you?"

"We're fine," Mulan said.

"Yao has a sword wound," Shang said. He looked at me. I reached for the sheaf of paper I kept in my bag, and my mechanical pencil. I went outside. Yao was curled over a wound on his side, wincing every so often. I did a sketch of a roll of bandages, a bottle of water and antiseptics. I spread the bandages with the antiseptics while Ling washed the blood off the wound. I wound the bandage tightly around the wound.

"Mulan!" Chien Po shouted. He gestured frantically at a clump of bushes. Several men were hiding in it

An arrow flew out of the bushes. I threw myself on the ground, scrabbling desperately for my notebook and pencil. I finished a drawing of a bow and a quiver full of arrows. Ling snatched them up. That was the last thing I remember before I fainted.

When I woke up, Mulan and Shang were looking down at me anxiously.

"What happened?" I asked, sitting up.

Mulan began, "Bandits tried to . . ."

"Yeah, I remember that part. I mean after I gave Ling the bow and arrows," I interrupted.

"They were driven off. We found you unconscious in the mud. What happened?" Shang asked.

"I must have overdone it. You see, I have to expend energy to create things. If I am bringing people, animals or plants from other places, I draw on their energy instead of mine, so I can do it almost limitlessly. But if I am creating objects, I have to draw on my own energy. If I use too much energy, that happens," I explained.

"That explains why you can eat so much," Mulan said. I laughed. I ate nearly as much as Shang if I had been creating things earlier that day, which is a lot.

"Yes. If I don't do it, I eat like a sparrow," I agreed.

The rest of the journey continued without a problem. When we reached the Imperial Palace, we were welcomed as the magician, The Hero of China, General Shang and three soldiers, in that order.

The sheer opulence of the palace left me speechless. I was routinely called on to demonstrate my 'powers'. My clothing changed abruptly from wool and cotton to silks and satins, and instead of chatting with Shang and Mulan, and occasionally Mushu over a simple dinner, I found myself relating my stories to dozens of the Emperor's court over a banquet served on gold plates. Pork, beef, chicken, mutton, you name it and they served it. I distinctly remember seeing a peacock served on a gilded plate, with its feathers arranged around it.

A week after my arrival at the palace, I was reading one of the books in the library, trying to trace back my family tree as far as possible. I was wearing my black dress, choker necklace and black wristbands. I had rarely taken the wristbands off, even though I had been given silk alternatives, except to bathe or to show the scars.

Suddenly the scene around me changed. I was in Lucy's room, sitting on a piece of paper and still holding the book from the library. "Auntie Christina!" Lucy cried, launching herself at me.

I blinked. I was back in Singapore, and the heat and humidity was a startling difference to months in China. I hugged Lucy back.

"Lulu, how long did it take for you to draw?" I asked.

"About ten minutes," Lucy replied.

Ten minutes. Ten minutes had equaled to nearly two months in Ancient China. It had been four years and I still had not gotten used to the time difference.

I went to the bathroom and washed off some ink stains on my hands. I did a mental inventory of what 'badges of honor' - my family's term for the marks we came back from adventures with - I had gained since the last time. Sword calluses from constant sword and dagger practice, red-stained lips and cheeks from daily use of makeup, a must in the Emperor's court, even for a so-called magician, slightly longer hair, and a bit of weight gain from rich food. Other than that, I looked no different from before I sent Mulan and Shang back.

I called Mum and Beatrice to explain what had happened. Mum wanted to hear more about my adventure when she came back from Malaysia. Beatrice promised that she would teach little Lucy never to complete drawings.

Chapter 3

A.N. It is my impression that Susan may have eventually gotten back into Narnia.

You have to be joking, I thought. A dazed Peter Pevensie, wearing his crown as High King, from the Chronicles of Narnia book series, was sitting on the table across from me, blocking my view of my nephew. It had been three months since my impromptu trip to China, and I was babysitting, again. This time I was babysitting a reformed Lucy, Valerie, the Valerie that was sent to the Crusades once, and Lucy's ten-year-old brother Anthony.

I had been working my way through 'The Elegance of the Hedgehog' by Muriel Barbery while Anthony looked through some drawings done by Lucy, Valerie and I. I had given him permission to finish some of my drawings, because as he was a boy, he was unlikely to have inherited the ability. Evidently I was wrong. He must have finished my portrait of Peter Pevensie, I thought.

"Anthony? Which drawing did you finish?" I asked my nephew, hidden behind Peter.

The king slid off the table and drew his sword, Rhindon, and pointed it at my chest in one fluid movement. I tried to remain calm. Three months prior I had two battle-hardened warriors ready to kill me in an instant. Five years earlier I had a knife held at my throat.

"Why do you need to ask, Aunt Christina?" Valerie called from Lucy's room, where she was playing with her. "Take a wild guess," I overheard Lucy say.

I turned my attention to the more immediate issue of a man in Beatrice's home holding a sword to my chest.

"I am dreadfully sorry, Your Majesty," I said, getting out of my seat and bowing. The Narnian High King relaxed slightly and sheathed his sword when he heard my apology.

"Where am I? Who are you?" King Peter asked.

"You are in twenty-first century Singapore, in my cousin's home. Christina Seah at your service, Your Majesty," I said.

"I am in the Shadowlands?" King Peter asked, referring to the name for any location other than Aslan's Country, Narnian heaven.

"Yes. I will send you back to Aslan's Country immediately, Your Majesty," I said. "Valerie! I need your help!"

Valerie trotted out of Lucy's room, Lucy in tow.

"Anthony, don't finish another drawing. Valerie, you have to be ready to bring me back. Lucy, listen to whatever Anthony or Valerie say," I said, looking for one of the several copies of the spell to send people or animals back to their own worlds that I kept in my bag.

I finally found one of the spells. "Make sure you're not touching anything, Your Majesty. If my family's history books are correct, you bring anything you are in direct contact with back with you," I said to King Peter.

King Peter immediately put down the drawings he was studying. I read the spell, keeping a close eye on the king as I did so. He still seemed a bit on edge, as I suspected. At least he had put his sword away.

As the last word left my lips and the gold haze dissipated, we stood in Cair Paravel, Narnia's main royal palace. The same splitting headache set in. I wondered if I would ever get used to it.

"Peter!" someone shouted. I turned. It was a blonde man, a little younger than Peter, but with so many blonde men in the stories I could not identify who it was.

"Ed!" King Peter shouted back. So the man was Edmund Pevensie. King Edmund the Just, younger brother to High King Peter the Magnificent.

"Who's she?" King Edmund asked.

"Her name is Christina. Ed, you will not believe this, but I was just in the Shadowlands. In twenty-first century Singapore," King Peter said.

King Edmund gaped at him. "How did . . . What happened?" King Edmund asked.

"I'm not too sure myself," King Peter confessed, "Christina, would you please explain?"

"It's a bit of a long story. Women in my mother's family have long had the ability to draw so realistically, that if completed, their drawings will become real, and if of people and animals, they will be brought from their world. It is passed from mother to daughter. Usually, it's only the women that have the ability," I said, before I had to stop to breathe.

"I was babysitting my nieces Lucy and Valerie, as well as my nephew Anthony. I and my nieces have this ability, and as a result never complete our drawings. As the drawings need to be completed by someone with the ability to become real, I assumed that it would be safe to let Anthony finish my drawings. We knew he was good at art, but we never suspected that he might have inherited the ability, as no boy ever has."

"One of my drawings was a copy of another one in The Last Battle, the last book in the Chronicles of Narnia. Anthony finished that one, and accidentally brought Your Majesty to Singapore," I finished.

"And you found me sitting on the table," King Peter added.

I nodded. "Yes. I knew that I had to send Your Majesty back here, but the spell has the side effect of bringing the caster along. I told Valerie to be ready to draw a picture of me, as once the spell is completed, it is forgotten, and any traces of it vanishes immediately," I said.

"Until your niece brings you back to Singapore, you will be a guest here. I trust this is your first time in Narnia?" King Edmund asked.

"Yes, Your Majesty," I said.

"Then you might want to keep an open mind. Narnia takes a bit of getting used to," King Peter said.

"I can testify to that," another man said. He was blonde. I guessed that he was Eustace, the Pevensie's cousin, as he and Edmund were the only blonde men to visit Narnia, according to the books.

"I've had an Ancient Chinese general and a legendary warrior ready to kill me three months ago, been sent back in time and visited the Emperor's court. If that doesn't give you an open mind, you'd have to be pretty stubborn," I said.

"Oh! Who's she?" a red-haired woman asked. Queen Lucy the Valiant, I guessed.

"My name is Christina, Your Majesty," I said, bowing to her.

"Good afternoon, Christina, and welcome to Narnia," Queen Lucy said chirpily.

Dear reader, have you ever been in a foreign country, where the culture and technology is vastly different from what you are used to, and the locals speak a language you are barely able to understand? And where you are unsure of what to do almost every second of the day? That was exactly what it was like for me in Cair Paravel. Most of its residents were Kings and Queens, and generally, they spoke like they were in Elizabethan times, except for King Peter, Edmund, Eustace and Digory, and Queen Susan, Lucy, Jill and Polly. I could barely understand everyone else.

Society was a bit like how it was in the Middle Ages, which I was an expert on, courtesy of Valerie's trip to the Crusades. The main difference was that everyone was equal, and I will never learn how it works with chivalry. Now, this might sound like Utopia, and I would be overjoyed to be there, but it is mildly disturbing that a Talking Hamster would be my equal.

The Talking Mice, I soon found out, were the biggest gossips in Cair Paravel. Within twenty minutes of my arrival every servant in the palace was giving me cautious looks. At first I thought it was because of my Gothic clothes; it was the only style that allowed me to be mostly covered up, but after a while I realized that it was because they thought I was in league with the White Witch, better known as Jadis, their embodiment of the Devil. This took the combined efforts of King Peter and Queen Lucy to clear up.

The other thing that took some getting used to was having Aslan walking around the palace. For those unfamiliar with the book series, Aslan is basically their God. His usual form is that of a lion. It is disconcerting to walk into the library and find a lion the size of a baby elephant reading one of the books on law. King Eustace told me on my first day there that everyone came to Narnia for a reason. Unfortunately, nobody knew what my purpose in coming to Narnia was, and Aslan kept mum on the matter.

Aslan was intimidating; you can trust me on that. Queen Lucy was the only one that dared to hug or touch him on a whim, possibly because she was his favorite and could get away with it. Even the other Kings and Queens kept their distance.

Evenings were usually spent in the parlor, exchanging stories. If I did not know my purpose in coming to Narnia, at least I could tell stories. I told them about my trip to the year 1603, Ancient China, and the messes my family had to clean up, like finding Pinocchio in Lucy's room once. King Edmund and King Peter had seen the movie, and it amused them to no end that Beatrice had to send Pinocchio back and been sent back herself.

Reepicheep, a Talking Mouse, shared stories of life on the Dawn Treader, King Caspian X's ship, which King Caspian, King Eustace, King Edmund, Queen Lucy and Drinian, the ship's captain added to.

King Peter and King Edmund shared stories of their battles during their reign, and Queen Susan told us about the mess that resulted when she was courted by the young Rabadash the Ridiculous, then Prince of Calormen, a country Narnia had tempestuous relations with, at best.

The first few days in Narnia were a lesson for me. King Peter and King Edmund told me about the nightmare they had when they first returned to England and had to hide the scars they got while in Narnia from everyone. Apparently, they kept their scars when they went back through the wardrobe, and it is not very easy for one to hide a large scar on one's stomach, which King Edmund got when he was stabbed by the White Witch. I had gotten careless, and I had gone swimming, revealing the scar on my neck which I usually hid with collars and choker necklaces. I would have been discovered, had Lucy not begged for a piggyback ride and held on by my neck. King Edmund and King Peter were mortified when they heard that story. They could not believe that I had been so careless. That put into perspective just how stupid I had been at the time. If I had been discovered, every female member of my mother's family would likely as not have been monitored every second of the day. My little Lucy would have been studied, like an animal. How could I have been so careless?!

Queen Lucy wanted to hear about my little Lucy, and my family. I told her about my ability, my family's history with it, and how it had been so carefully concealed for centuries. I was treated to a first-hand account of the Battle of Beruna, and I told her about Valerie's trip to Syria in 1337.

The rooms I was given consisted of a bedroom with a large, four-poster bed, a wardrobe roughly twice the size of mine at home, stuffed with Narnian-style dresses and shoes, a desk so elaborate it would put any furniture store to shame, and a bathroom to myself. Everyone ate in the dining rooms. The Pevensie family ate together, though often they simply ate with the other Kings and Queens.

Dining rooms were assigned according to dynasty. For example, the first nine hundred-odd years of Narnia's existence was under the Frank and Helenian Dynasty, named after King Frank and Queen Helen, the first King and Queen of Narnia. They were assigned the biggest dining room, as nine hundred years' worth of royal families means a lot of people.

The Pevensies had the smallest dining room, because it was only the Pevensie family most of the time.

After that was the Telmarine Dynasty, which was the next thousand-odd years. Most of the Telmarines, though, before King Caspian X, lived in the Telmarine castle, and as the Telmarines after King Caspian X reigned for only the last three hundred years, they had the second-smallest dining room.

That did not include the dining rooms for Animals. Talking Mice, for example, shared dining rooms with other animals like Talking Rabbits that were roughly the same size as them.

The food was amazing. Any self-respecting foodie would have given his or her teeth to eat any of the dishes. The desserts were light and airy, and you could easily eat three bowls without even realizing it. The steaks, recipe courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Pevensie, were perfectly cooked with herbs that did not even grow in our world. I suspected I was going to have to go on a diet once I got back to Singapore.

We had not much to do in Aslan's country. Aslan mostly prowled the hallways, looking very majestic and very scary at the same time. It would be not unlike the Queen of England walking around a HDB flat in her finest. King Edmund was the resident spy king, and he had no end of messengers such as Talking Crows and even the odd Talking Wolf or Fox streaming into his offices. King Rilian, King Caspian X's son, joked that if anyone had gone into his offices, which even the Pevensies were forbidden from entering, they would probably have been buried in an avalanche of reports from King Edmund's spies. At least it kept one King occupied. Most of the other Kings and Queens, with no wars to fight, no ambassadors to sort out, or negotiations to handle, were bored and played chess so many times, the chess pieces were worn smooth and they had to have metal ones made.

The unmarried Kings and Queens did have at least the distraction of fending off ambassadors vying for them to marry one noble or another. Queen Susan and Queen Lucy, as the High King's sisters, got at least one every day. After they announced that they had a magician, me, at Cair Paravel, I began getting marriage requests. Queen Lucy said that I had it easy; she had begun getting hers the moment she was crowned Queen, and they had never stopped since then. This may not sound like much of a surprise to you, dear reader, but Queen Lucy was eight years old at the time!

The married Kings and Queens, unfortunately, had no such distraction. They did have to settle trade negotiations and occasionally break up conflicts, but that was about all they had to do.

The first time ambassadors began flocking towards me, the magician, about two weeks after I arrived in Narnia, Queen Lucy told me, because she was in charge of audiences that day. Apparently, they wanted me to be married off to them because they were thinking about the fact that I could create weapons and valuable items simply by drawing them. King Edmund, over dinner, told me to wear my Gothic dress the next morning, collar and all, and meet him in the parlor. I had no idea what the Just King was up to, but there was a good reason he handled tough negotiations. The man had a mind like a knife.

The next morning, as instructed, I put on my Gothic dress and collar, with lace bracelets. King Edmund had evidently told the rest of the Pevensies, as Queen Susan was waiting with a small box filled to the brim with makeup, Queen Lucy had a mirror, and King Peter had found a camera to photograph me in full Gothic costume. Mr. and Mrs. Pevensie were trying hard to suppress their smiles.

I am not exactly sure what happened next, only that by the end of it I looked like a hardcore Goth. I do remember Queen Lucy and Queen Susan coming after me armed with the mirror and black lipstick, though.

The Pevensies herded me into the throne room, and King Edmund and Queen Susan were in charge of audiences that day. The ambassador who had asked for me to be married to his master stopped in his tracks when he saw me. Clearly he had not been expecting a girl dressed in an elaborate black dress with a lace collar and matching lace bracelets.

I tried not to laugh at the ambassador's reaction to my appearance. Queen Susan had even found a pair of black, high-heeled shoes, and added them to my costume. To stop myself from losing my balance, I had to stand statue-still, and hold on to King Edmund's throne, which, of course, made me look even stranger, and was exactly what King Edmund was hoping for.

The ambassador looked like he was about to faint. Thanks to Queen Susan and Queen Lucy's makeup, my face was as white as snow, and my lips were painted black. Mascara had been applied to make my eyelashes look longer and darker. I had put away my spectacles. By the end of it, I could have scared anyone.

King Edmund managed to keep his face perfectly straight as he said, "May I present Christina Seah, the magician."

One of the guards, a Centaur, who had been told of the plan, suddenly burst out laughing, his swords and armor rattling as he struggled to compose himself. I fought to keep my face serious as I saw the expression on the ambassador's. Shock. Surprise. Fear. Queen Susan bit her lip to keep herself from laughing.

"Christina, would you please demonstrate your ability?" King Edmund asked.

"Of course, Your Majesty," I said, curtseying to King Edmund. A Badger brought me a few sheets of paper, a quill, and a pot of ink. The Court Recorder, a Centaur, let me use her table to draw. I did a drawing of a shield with a gold lion on it, and no sooner had I finished the drawing than a shield appeared on the table, scaring the life out of a few members of the court. I brought it to King Edmund, who strapped it to his arm.

"Now you see, we are reluctant to lose her ability, as it means that we need not mine, nor do we need to manufacture anything. But, she is also capable of using the weapons she creates. We will not lose ability such as hers easily," King Edmund said.

King Edmund was lying. I could not use a shield to save my life, though I could use a sword if I had to, after Mulan and Shang taught me how to in China. The ambassador stammered, "Your Majesty, perhaps my master may find it more suitable that he marries Your Majesty's sisters Queen Lucy or Queen Susan. It would mean that Your Majesty may keep Christina's ability, and would not be burdened by having to provide for a woman."

Queen Susan glared at the ambassador for the insult. I could not believe my ears. He was insulting Queen Susan the Gentle, who was seated one meter away from him. I had learned within my first week of coming to Narnia that her name was a warning. She was gentle if you stayed on her good side. If you insulted her, or anyone she cared about, you were going to regret the decision for the rest of your life, mortal or immortal. King Edmund said coolly, "You may regret saying that in the presence of my Sister-Queen. Here in Narnia, women stand on equal footing as men, and I know none who would stand such an insult. Queen Susan, if you please?"

Queen Susan sat up as straight as possible in her throne. "You are dismissed. We will not hear your case on any marriages in the near future," she said.

The ambassador stood there, slack-jawed and disbelieving what had just happened. Not only had he failed to get me married to his master, he had also guaranteed that his master would be unlikely to marry any of the Narnian royalty. In my opinion, he deserved it.

"Court dismissed," King Edmund said, and stood. He escorted Queen Susan out of the throne room. I followed after them.

The moment we were safely out of the throne room, King Edmund forgot what everyone called his 'Court face' and laughed, leaning against the wall of one of the corridors as he was nearly bent in half laughing. It made me start laughing, and Queen Susan began laughing as well. "Did you see the look on his face when the ambassador saw you?" King Edmund said between laughs, "It was priceless! Good job on the makeup, Su, and the shield . . ." King Edmund collapsed, laughing so hard he could not even speak.

We staggered back to the parlor to share our victory with the other Kings and Queens. I must have scared the daylights out of King Digory and Queen Polly, who were sitting in the parlor. King Digory looked like a cow hit with a shovel. Queen Polly's eyes were as big as saucers.

"I should wash off the makeup before I scare anyone else," I giggled. Queen Susan gave me a bottle of makeup remover and I went back to my rooms. I ran into Reepicheep and King Caspian X. Reepicheep reached for his sword out of reflex, while King Caspian tried not to let his shock show.

"This is how I am supposed to look in full Gothic costume," I explained. Reepicheep put away his sword.

"I need to wash the makeup off. It's probably older than I am," I said. King Caspian and Reepicheep moved out of the way to let me go to my rooms to wash off the makeup. I could not stop laughing. The looks on their faces were priceless!

Just as I was washing off the last of the makeup, I sensed someone behind me. I turned.

High King Peter.

"Good afternoon, Your Majesty," I said, quickly drying my hands and face.

"Please, just call me Peter," King Peter said.

"Alright. Good afternoon, Peter," I said.

"Good afternoon, Christina."

I asked Peter what he was doing in my room. He said that he had heard of my encounter with the ambassador and wanted to congratulate me.

We sat on the couch in front of the fireplace and chatted.

"You may have to do a repeat of the appearance. I heard that a Calormene ambassador is trying to convince us to marry you to his master," Peter said.

I took off my spectacles and polished them on my bracelet, something I always did when I was thinking. "Do I have to go in full costume?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Would it work without the makeup?" I asked. As much as I liked the Goth look, wearing and removing heavy makeup was quite irritating.

"Hopefully it would. You would have to ask Susan and Edmund about that."

Over supper, that was exactly what I did. "Oh, don't worry. I heard that the ambassador tends to be easily put off. If you go in full costume, that should be enough," Susan said.

"Thank you," I said.

A week later, I stood next to King Caspian X's throne in full costume with a nearly-finished drawing, a quill and a bottle of ink in my hands.

After all the usual business of greetings and elaborate titles (King Caspian's full title was about ten phrases long, including Sir Caspian Wolfsbane, passed down from Peter, and King Caspian the Seafarer), we could finally get to business.

"Tarkaan Anradin, I present Christina Seah, the magician," King Caspian said. His wife, sitting next to him on the other throne, was trying hard not to laugh and disguised it by pretending to cough.

I curtsied to the ambassador. He was so shocked by my appearance that he was literally speechless for a few seconds. I gnawed the inside of my cheek to myself from laughing at his expression.

"Tarkaan Anradin, I believe we were discussing the marriage of our magician to your master?" King Caspian X said.

That was his wife's cue to object. We had planned the whole audience, down to exactly how I would give King Caspian the sword I would draw and what I would say.

"I believe Christina should be allowed to voice her opinion on this marriage," the Queen said.

As we expected, this put off the ambassador even more. Women were property in Calormene, with no right to voice their opinions on marriage.

I kept my voice steady and my expression as close to Edmund's 'Court face' as I could manage as I said, "I do not wish to leave Narnia. Calormen, from what I heard, has a penchant for slavery. I will not live in a country that enslaves fellow Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve."

The ambassador looked like he had just eaten something that was spoiled.

Victory.

I hid a triumphant smile.

"Christina, would you please demonstrate your ability?" King Caspian asked.

I curtsied to King Caspian. "Of course, Your Majesty," I replied.

I borrowed the same Centaur's desk to draw the final detail on my sword: the cross guard. No sooner had the cross-guard been completed than the sword, an exact copy of the sword Mulan had taught me to use, appeared on the paper. I picked it up by the handle and tested its weight. I knew how to handle this sword fairly well. The ambassador now looked frightened. He had an armed magician about a meter away from him, and she had just summoned a sword out of thin air.

I held it by the scabbard to give it to King Caspian. I knew for a fact that he had never seen a Chinese sword before, but we had agreed that he would strap it to his waist like any other sword.

The ambassador made a few lame excuses to get out of the throne room as soon as possible. As we had arranged for the audience with the ambassador to be the last of the day, we could leave. King Caspian escorted his wife out of the throne room. The moment we were safely out of the throne room, Caspian's Queen began laughing. "Did you see the ambassador's face?" she managed between laughs.

King Caspian laughed harder. "You said that you can handle this?" he asked, indicating the sword.

"Yes. When I went to China, one soldier and a general taught me, out of fear that we would be attacked on the way to the emperor's palace," I said. "I am extremely bad, though."

"I would very much like to see your skills with a sword, Christina," King Caspian said, "Will you meet me in the training grounds at five o'clock?"

"Okay," I replied.

At exactly five o'clock I sprinted onto the training grounds to find King Caspian waiting for me with my sword.

"Sorry. I didn't check the time," I apologized, catching my breath.

"It's no problem. Here," King Caspian said, giving me the sword, "When you're ready."

I took the sword and unsheathed it. To get a sense of the weight, a trick Shang had taught me, I waved it slightly, to see how heavy it was and how it reacted to my movements. I was out of practice, that much I knew. It had been six months since I last used a sword.

"Okay. I`m ready," I said, holding my sword in the 'ready' position I had been taught.

King Caspian was too much of a gentleman to attack first, and I was never taught how to do my first attack. My sword training was only as a last-ditch resort of defending myself.

"Please, attack first. I was only taught this to defend myself," I said.

"As you wish," King Caspian said, before lunging and aiming a swipe at my legs. I jumped out of the way, and then attacked. This was exactly the same way Shang liked to start practice duels.

I noticed the way King Caspian handled a sword was very different from how I did, or Shang or Mulan. I assumed it was because the sword he used was heavier and longer than mine.

Due to the fact that I was not only bad with a sword by default and was out of practice, King Caspian kicked my butt. Once your opponent disarms you and has a sword at your neck, you're basically dead meat.

"You're not that bad," King Caspian said. He sheathed his sword. "Mulan, my teacher, is a legendary soldier in the world I come from. Her husband, Shang, was a general in the army. He taught me as well," I said.

King Caspian tilted his head to one side. "If I remember Queen Lucy's stories correctly, Mulan was a Daughter of Eve, from China, centuries before her time," he said, looking confused.

I had to smile. I remembered that story as well. Queen Lucy had told us that story the day after I arrived in Narnia, and it had prompted me to share about my adventure in Disney's Ancient China. King Caspian hadn't been there, so he hadn't heard. "Yes, but my niece drew a picture of Mulan and General Shang. She has the ability as well, and I had to bring them back to their own time. I was there for two months before my niece brought me back, as the time in the two worlds were separate," I explained.

King Caspian nodded. "Your swordsmanship needs work. Meet me here same time tomorrow."

I did, and let me say this: do not ever accept an offer from a Narnian King to train you in using a sword unless you're already in good shape or you have to. On the bright side, I was never going to fail P.E., and by the end of it I could use a sword and shield well enough not to get killed within five minutes of a duel.

It was about three months after I got into Narnia that I bumped into Aslan. "Christina. I am going to send you back. You have learned what you need."

"No offence, sir, but what have I learned?" I asked.

Aslan raised an eyebrow. "You have learned the power of appearances. You have learned that in order to keep your family's ability a secret, you must be cautious, and I daresay you are unlikely to forget it. You have also learned some skills you may need to stay alive in future."

"True," I admitted.

"And I believe your niece is about to complete her drawing. Goodbye."

There was a blinding flash of light, and the next thing I knew I was sitting on the dinner table on top of a piece of paper.

I have a tendency to be dazed for an hour or so after my adventures and go into what Mum called 'autopilot', when I didn't really think, so I swear on my favorite sketchbook that the next thing I knew I was toe-to-toe with Johanna, the resident snob at my tuition class.

She thought that my art was useless and pathetic. That I was a complete wimp. A coward. Oh, how wrong that spoiled brat was. She hadn't seen me with a sword before. She had no idea. Holy Minerva, how I wanted a sword right now…

Suddenly there was a familiar weight in my hand and Johanna screamed.

I looked down.

In my hand, as solid and real as could be, was a sword. More accurately, it was an Ancient Chinese _miao dao_, the exact same kind I had learned to use.

Chapter 4

Mum was not happy, to say the least, to hear about the craziness that ensued that day. On the bright side, it did prompt a family meeting. The entire family, all one-hundred-and-something of us, met to find out who else was an Artist, what we called those who had the ability, and why the holy Minerva I could create a sword without having to draw.

As it turned out, about half the boys between the ages of ten and eighteen along with a few others, my dad included, had somehow gotten the ability, which had for some strange reason lain dormant until recently. To say we were surprised doesn't even begin to describe it, especially in Dad's case, since he was only related to Mum's family through marrying Mum.

As for the whole insta-sword thing?

We checked the family records, and it turned out I wasn't the first to create something just by thinking. The first Artist to do that, Zhang Jing Wen from the eighteenth century, had met who else but the goddess Minerva herself and got the ability plus a few others immediately after, thus why a good chunk of us said things like "Holy Minerva."

The general consensus was that the exposure to so much power was why she no longer needed to draw or anything to create something, becoming a Master. She was the first Master, and no-one else had become one since.

That meant I was literally the only other person in over six hundred years of recorded history to become a Master. All I had to do was think hard about what I wanted, in that case a sword, and wham! Instant sword.

And instant police report. Long story short, things would have been a bit tricky for us if Lucy hadn't decided then was a good time to draw the memory-wiping thing and several pairs of those sunglasses from Men in Black and use it.

Ever tried to stop a group of boys from doing something they liked and were good at? If you succeeded, I take my hat off to you. Anthony, at least, had learned his lesson, and didn't attempt to complete any drawings or paintings. Everyone else?

"Benjamin!" I snapped. Said cousin immediately slammed his pencil down with a scowl. "Alright, alright, I know," the eleven-year-old grumbled. "No completing drawings."

"Good. I nearly got turned into human *satay the last time!" Lucy said. Anthony and I were working on our homework at the dinner table, Lucy and Benjamin were drawing. As usual, I was babysitting, but this time it was because our parents had to figure out how on Earth to deal with the sudden spike in adventures. I hadn't been included, even though I had just hit fifteen and was the only Master in this generation.

Ever since we'd found out about the twenty or so boys who, as it turned out, had the ability, our adventures had increased exponentially. In the past, the average number of adventures was one every other month, at most, since Lucy had learned not to finish her drawings.

Now? It was one every other day, and that was on good days! The worst was when we were having two or three a day for two weeks, a good portion of them mine. It had resulted in almost every single girl or woman in the family above the age of twelve having to send something back at one point or another. I'd had trips to Harry Potter, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the Hunger Games, Les Miserables, you name it I'd probably visited it.

Even Lucy had had an adventure of her own, purely by accident, though. She and James, my thirteen-year-old cousin, had gotten sent into 'How to Train Your Dragon' right around the middle of the movie, thus the human satay reference.

"Ben don't!" Anthony cried, but it was too late.

Who else but Tigress from Kung Fu Panda now sat on the table.

Why did Fate hate me so much?

She slipped off the table, going into a fighting stance. "Where am I? Who are you? What kind of creature are you? Why am I here?"

I took a deep breath to calm myself. Do not think about swords, Christina, do not think about swords. "You are in Singapore, South-East Asia, in the twenty-first century. You might know Singapore better as Temasek, off the coast of Malaya or Malaysia as it's called now. My name is Christina Seah Jing Yi, and I'm a human. You're here because my nephew went and completed a picture of you. Long story, but basically any art women from my family complete becomes real, and for some reason some boys inherited the ability as well.

"I can send you back to your own world, but a side-effect of the spell is that the caster gets brought along as well. I can't send myself back either – as far as we can tell the spell only exists in this world so I have to wait for someone else with the ability to complete a picture of me before I can go back. Trouble is time is separate between this world and any other world. Minutes here can mean days somewhere else."

"So you will be with me for an unknown period of time," Tigress said, nodding. "I do not mind."

I put on my combat boots and grabbed my sketchbook. After the trip to Narnia, I'd had enough of wearing black dresses and skirts all the time on adventures and swapped to wearing combat boots, jeans and T-shirts with a fleece-lined leather jacket tied around my waist. The end result was that I looked like a Chinese Katniss Everdeen who cut off her braid, which was far more practical on an adventure to Kung Fu Panda China.

I started on the spell. By now, after so many adventures, I had about ten copies in my jacket pocket alone..

But just as I finished the last word - those words were an average five syllables long each, Ben thought it'd be a simply _fantastic_ idea to grab my wrist, and Lucy latched onto his wrist to try to pull him back.

The trouble with the spell is that it works sort of like a magnet. Whoever the caster or the person from the other world is touching gets brought along as well, and whoever is touching _them_ gets dragged along too. And the more people, the higher the energy drain on the caster. I was a Master, but the spell still drained a lot of energy.

End result? Once the gold haze cleared and we stood in the courtyard of the Jade Palace, I ended up with the worst headache I'd ever had. It felt like my head was being split with an axe.

I forced back a groan and massaged my head.

"Are you alright?" Tigress asked.

"I'm fine."

Apparently whoever named the Valley of Peace was either drunk at the time or he had a wicked sense of humor, because not one week after Ben, Lucy and I arrived a black jaguar called Ming started setting attackers on the Valley.

Turns out he wanted to learn kung-fu but was rejected by Oogway who saw the evil in his heart. So he tries to attack Oogway, Oogway kicks his butt, off he goes to sulk and now he's back! Yay. Notice the sarcasm? Really, what was it with evil in a person's heart and Oogway annoying every blasted animal who wants to learn or has learned kung-fu?

Po and the Furious Five headed out to deal with Ming, and came back with everyone bar Po _completely_ paralyzed (ah, the wonders one can do with chi attacks), and Po, in one word, owned. He had one message: Ming was coming, and he was just two days away.

The Valley was evacuated, but Po and Shifu decided to stay behind on a suicide mission to delay Ming. I volunteered to stay behind as well, mostly because I'd been... experimenting, with this whole 'Master' thing.

I'd created all sorts of things multiple times without having to draw, no problem, and I had heard a story about the first Master, Zhang Jing Wen, managing to create a freaking _typhoon_, sans paper. Yep. She, the first Master, managed to create a mature tropical cyclone just by thinking at the age of sixteen, so I figured if I really had to I could try creating like a bottomless pit.

Lucy and Ben went with the rest of the villagers out of the Valley. They were definitely safer far, far away from people who weren't on crazy suicide missions, and I did not want to see those two in coffins just yet. If I could help it I'd never.

I'd discovered, not long after my family realized I was a Master, that I could actually send objects into a sort of alternate dimension - I dubbed it Hammerspace, after an internet page I saw - and bring them back instantly without using any energy, just by thinking about an open cupboard and feeling for what I wanted, which made it very useful for storing things like weapons, extra clothes, first aid supplies, money, and homework. I referred to it as summoning, since I didn't actually have to create it.

I'd summoned my _miao dao_ and practiced every Friday night back at home, when my parents were out with their friends, for at least three hours and with the curtains drawn so the neighbours didn't freak out. As a result I didn't really need to practice with my sword other than sparring against Shifu so I could get used to fighting against Animals.

The two days passed far too quickly.

I wasn't ready. I wouldn't survive. My stupid glasses were going to shatter if I did something like this, and I was virtually blind without them. And three hours of practice a week? Really? And what if I_couldn't_ create something because I panicked? I had never had to create or summon something in the heat of battle, it was always when I was relatively calm. I'll be a sitting duck if I was too panicked to even summon anything. My whole offense/defense plan rested on my being able to get something instantly when I needed it.

The day Ming was expected to arrive, my stress levels had skyrocketed. The waiting was worse than that time in Mulan's China when I was attacked. At least then I couldn't think and could only react. I had to stand in front of a mirror and make a conscious effort to relax my facial muscles. Po joked that at one point my face would just freeze that way.

I was pacing up and down my room, clutching the hilt of my sword to try and relax, when I heard a familiar little voice say, "Ben, be quiet! Aunt Christina'll hear us!"

"No, she won't." It was coming from Tigress' room. Apparently they had forgotten that the doors and walls were paper screens.

I walked over to Tigress' room and flung open the door.

Lucy and Ben were standing in the middle of the room, locked in a battle of glares, but with Lucy being about a third smaller than Ben, it looked rather comical.

"Why aren't you with the Furious Five?" I asked, irritated.

Lucy and Ben finally noticed me standing at the door. Ben visibly swallowed. "We… um…" Ben began, then suddenly pointed at Lucy. "It was her idea!"

"No! It was NOT!" Lucy protested. "He wanted to sneak back but I didn't want to!"

Cue shouting argument between Lucy and Ben.

I felt my temper snap. I was already stressed more than I thought I could take, and this? It was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. "Lucy! Ben! Shut. Up!" I snapped angrily. It came out a lot louder than I meant for it to. I'd actually shouted.

Lucy and Ben immediately shut up, but I didn't miss their slightly scared looks. I never raised my voice with them, ever, and outright shouting was seriously out of character for me. Add in the sword I just realized I was still holding in a death grip and they probably thought I was going to lose it.

"Christina! Ming has arrived!" Shifu's voice suddenly shouted from down the corridor.

"Stay here, and do not leave until I tell you to!" I ordered, using my best Glare of Doom on them.

Lucy and Ben nodded fearfully.

I dashed out.

I felt slightly guilty when I realized I probably scared the life out of them, but they had sneaked back into the Jade Palace when it was clearly dangerous for them.

I didn't get much of a chance to think about it later. I was a tiny bit occupied with dealing with the hundred-odd attackers who had invaded the Jade Palace, led by Ming.

Some one hundred attackers versus three defenders. That was hardly fair, was it? Mulan and Shang had it easy by comparison in the movie.

Fueled by adrenaline I attacked mercilessly. I always tried to just knock them out where I could, but in some cases it was unavoidable.

I'd seen death before, but I'd never taken a life. Now I didn't really have a choice.

If only there was some way I could just stun the lot of them or something. Something simple and could get them out of the way, or in the air.

_Duh, levitation!_ I summoned my wand I got from _Harry Potter_and held both my sword and wand in my right hand. I didn't want to have to keep swapping hands. "Levicorpus!" I thought, pointing my wand at one of the attackers and flicking it upwards.

He immediately floated up in the air, hauled up by his ankle. Thank you, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

I threw him to one side and got back to the fight while the attackers were all wondering what the holy Minerva happened to that guy. I had dealt with another ten before they came back to their senses, then they all swarmed at me.

Fan-freaking-tastic.

I was throwing spells left and right - _Tarantellagra, Levicorpus, Petrificus Totallus_, until I nearly got tunnel vision like that time when I was nine and just discovered my abilities. What did I do then? It seemed like a lifetime ago. Something to do with a movie?

I'd either levitated or paralyzed about half the attackers by then, and Shifu and Po had taken care of the other half, but I was completely useless by then. I was dazed and exhausted, and it was only through the sheer amount of adrenaline that I was even upright.

But where was Ming?

Then I heard a loud scream from the… Minerva no!

I tore down the corridor leading to the living quarters, Po and Shifu right on my heels.

The corridor seemed a hundred kilometers long now, and every step felt like it was in slow motion. Minerva no, no, no, they were kids!

Then I saw the one thing I never thought I'd see. Ming being blasted backwards out of Tigress' room by about a dozen white sports T-shirts.

Wait, what?

"Po, Shifu, you get Ming, I'm checking on Lu and Ben!" I yelled over my shoulder. Without waiting to check if they heard me I burst into Tigress' room.

If I thought seeing Ming being blasted backwards by sports T-shirts was weird, it was absolutely nothing compared to what I saw in Tigress' rooms.

Lucy and Ben were manning what I can only guess was the Gatling gun T-shirt launcher thing used in sports arenas. Needless to say it was loaded with sports shirts. They had the smuggest looks on their little faces.

What.

I just shook my head, told them to stay there and ran to where I saw Ming being blasted to, across the corridor to Po's room.

I barely had time to brace myself and get my sword ready as Ming charged at me, his claws unsheathed.

He was trying to get to Lucy and Ben. I couldn't let him. Where the holy Minerva were Po and Shifu?!

Even in a blind panic I still remembered my sword training and I managed to give Ming a good gash on his arm, but he threw me backwards into the brick wall of Po's room.

Holy Minerva, I was in agony. I was sure I had broken a rib or two, and yep, there goes my glasses. By some miracle none of the glass got in my eyes, but I was practically blind without them. I didn't have enough energy left for another spell, and I had no idea where my sword went.

With me out of the way, there was nothing to stop him from attacking Lucy and Ben. He stalked towards the room they were in.

I grit my teeth and tackled Ming, creating and unpinning a hand grenade before stuffing it down Ming's pants.

On an impulse I created a deep pit in the ground next to me, shoving Ming into it. I had just enough time to create a thick slab of granite on top when I heard the grenade go off underneath it.

Then the world went black.

When I came to I was in a hospital room, well, as far as I could tell without wearing glasses.

Dad was dozing in the chair next to me, Mum was outside talking to someone wearing a suit. He looked like a lawyer or something.

"Aunt Christina!"

Lucy nearly crashed into my hospital bed, throwing her arms around me and completely blocking my view.

"Tina, you really should stop going on these adventures," Dad said reproachfully. From the direction of his voice I guessed he had stood up. "You were out for six hours, not including the time you were being treated. Three broken ribs. Your mother and I were worried sick!"

"Got it," I mumbled. "Please tell me I'm the only one injured. And, um do you have my backup glasses?"

Lucy finally pulled away from me. "You're the only one!"

"What happened?" I asked, using my arms to get into a semi-sitting position, which I had learned from experience was about my limit when it concerned injured ribs.

Dad gave me my glasses, looked around the room, checking the coast was clear, before he said, "From what I can tell from what Ben and Lucy told me, right after you covered that pit you shoved Ming down with the slab of rock, the bomb you stuffed down that Ming's pants went off. You fainted immediately after and when Shifu and Po managed to get back, Lucy disappeared, at which point I take it Anthony completed the drawing of her, then Ben and you appeared in the flat immediately after.

"Anthony realized you were injured and called the ambulance – in hindsight it would have made more sense to draw Lucy Pevensie's cordial and use it, but he was panicked so I can't blame him, then managed to pretend to be completely incoherent and in shock until we arrived, while convincing Lucy and Ben to do the same.

"The doctors found out you broke three ribs, have several wounds deep enough to require stitches, suffered some minor internal injury – they're saying it's a miracle it isn't worse and that you didn't puncture a lung with whatever you were doing after you broke your ribs, and you had collapsed from sheer exhaustion, I'm guessing from the amount of magic you used."

"What did you tell them?" I asked. That was the most important part. How the holy Minerva were we going to come up with a plausible excuse for this? Anyone with half a brain would be able to tell I'd been in a fight, and not a minor one at that.

Dad suddenly seemed exhausted, and sat down heavily in the chair. "They found the scars on your wrists and neck while they were treating you. Your mother and I were suspected of child abuse, and the flat was raided. They… They found the family records. We couldn't lie."

My mouth was suddenly dry. "The Government… They…"

"The Government knows, Christina. They know everything."

Holy Minerva, no.

"Officially, it was a freak accident. Your broken ribs and internal injuries came from you crawling under our antique bed, the one in the guest room, during a game of hide-and-seek just before it collapsed, and supposedly you tried to get out to no avail resulting in you fainting from exhaustion. Supposedly the scar on your neck came from a surgery and the ones on your wrists when you cut yourself on a dare. The fresh cuts are from the rusted metal nails in the bed." Dad's voice had turned wry. "I couldn't come up with that if I tried."

"Holy Minerva, no."

"Christina, it wasn't your fault. It could have happened to any of us," Dad said. "Point is, you're still alive, and the Government knows about us, that's it. It isn't the end of the world."

I was one step away from turning into a sobbing wreck. The only thing that was holding me back was my pride. "But, they know."

"And frankly they're interested in how you girls do it, that's it. Tina, we'll be fine. Nothing's going to change. All they want is to find out how you do it."

"No. No. We can't let them find out," Lucy said suddenly. "Because if they do, they will want to do it as well. Who knows what will happen if they can?"

"The worlds may not remain separate," I realized. "Dad, we can't let them find out! It'll be a disaster!"

Dad blanched. "Minerva, no."

"We've refused to be interviewed on how we do it," Mum announced, walking into the room. We later dubbed it the Entrance of Awesome. She smirked. "I don't know why. I _could_have said that if we were forced to reveal our secret, we'd sue, but I didn't. I also _could_ have said that if we were in any way bothered by the Government in regards to our ability in any way we had very powerful allies, among which was Aslan, but I didn't."

"Gabby Seah, you are a genius." That was from Dad needless to say.

**Epilogue**

Aunt Julia, my maternal Uncle Percy's American wife, shifted uncomfortably on the couch. "Do you remember Xavier Verde?"

All of those who had the ability were assembled in my cousin Beatrice's living room. We had come together to try to figure out everything we possibly could about our gift, and most importantly why only some and not all of the boys had inherited the ability.

I frowned. "Your cousin, was it? The one that visited after the Mulan China trip?"

She nodded. "Yes. He too possessed magic."

"What does this have to do with us?" Beatrice asked.

"Us Verdes have been guarding a plot of land for centuries. It has the power to draw characters out of their stories," Aunt Julia began, until Mum cut her off.

"You mean you've been with us for two years and you didn't _tell us_?" Mum demanded. She didn't like liars or people who withheld information.

Aunt Julia blushed. "Yes. In any case, recently he sent a letter to me saying that he swore he had seen some of his drawings move when they were completed, and not long after when it was discovered that the boys of this family had mysteriously gained the ability, I realized that during the visit some of the magic must have mixed.

"It's two very similar types of magic, but with one main difference: With us Verdes, usually it is only the boys who inherit the magic. It is possible that the result of the two kinds of magic mixing could be the boys gaining the drawing ability."

"Wait." It was James, the one Lucy had ended up in _How to Train Your Dragon_ with. "All of us who inherited the ability are the ones_who met Xavier!_ No-one else has the ability!"

"That means they already have the ability lying dormant! All it took was exposure to someone with a different kind of magic to activate it!" I realized.

"That answers a lot of questions," Anthony said, from where he was seated on the floor.

Aunt Julia nodded. "I should tell them as well, about you. Don't worry, they're good with keeping secrets under wraps."

"Maybe we can do sort of a meet-and-greet." I liked the thought of having something in common with another group.

"Meet-and-greet? Pah, what about an exchange program? We can learn more about each other's magic and maybe even figure out how it works!" Beatrice smiled.

"'Lia, what about it?" Uncle Percy asked.

Aunt Julia smirked. "Alright, but be warned, your minds may just explode from the sheer awesomeness of it."

**A.N. Satay can be described as South-East Asian barbeque. A **_**miao dao**_**is a long, narrow two-handed Chinese saber.**


End file.
